Holy Scrap!

What a fun weekend! Let me set a little backdrop for you. I can't ever afford ALL of the paper that I want. But I do get a little sampling of all of the new lines by CTMH each quarter. So what I started with, was three 6x6" double-sided patterned papers from the line called "Clementine."

I've been hoarding these, because I wanted to do something fun with them... but I wasn't sure what. First, I CAS'ed a card from this cool site called Rocky Mountain Paper Crafts that I found. A fellow Rocky Mountain consultant! How exciting!

One of the things I liked best about this layout was the use of the distressed doily to the side. I've never thought to distress a doily before. I think it's cute. I also used the stamp set, Card Chatter - Birthday, and a little white crochet flower - you can still get these in the Antiqued Gold Mini Medley collections. Oh, and I used some Sparkles from the Brown and Tan assortment.

 Now then, I wanted to use as much of the rest of my scraps as I possibly could to make cards.  Today's sketch #170 from Stars & Stamps seemed to be a perfect fit! I wanted to use every single last scrap, like squeezing and rolling the very last blop of toothpaste from an old tube! How many cards did I make? Let's count...

1) I used a sentiment from Card Chatter - Sympathy - but "heartfelt wishes" could be anything, right? Birthday? Just in general? These cards are all for Operation Write Home. :)

2) The only things used not by CTMH are the little metal dot/square embellishments, those are off of a page I got out of the dollar bin at Michael's. I also used a Sizzix wood-grain embossing folder. I also used the "You are my HAPPY" sentiment from the Buzz & Bumble Workshop kit.

3) Oh, and another Cuttlebug embossing folder. Did I mention that I love this Clementine paper? Did I tell you how hard it was to get the earworm out of my head while I was working? (Ohhh my dar-ling clem-en-tine!!!) - You're welcome.

More Buzz & Bumble stamps, I colored the little "seeds" and bee stamp with my CTMH alcohol markers, but I will blog about those later!

Four! Four more cards made from my tiny stash of three 6x6 papers. I used a few solids for mats and backgrounds. Clementine coordinates with Champagne, Saddle, Sorbet, Cashmere and I used some Lagoon as well. I used a lot of Saddle ink - this color is really growing on me. I'm glad that I finally used up my hoarded stash for a good cause, and here...

....is all that I had left over. :) Thanks for stopping by!

Oh my dar-ling, oh my DAR-LING oh my DAAAARLING CLEMENTINE.....ack!

DS-99

I'm loving this week's Deconstructed Sketch, #99. I can't wait for sketch #100! Congrats to Jen at this website - it is one of my favorites this year for sure. I look forward every week to the new sketches!

I used some scraps of the new paper line called "Claire" (CTMH) which I really love because it includes some cute denim paper and lots of fabric-y looking textures. I also love this color combination and those cool little flowery patterns. I used a 1.25" circle punch to punch one of the centers for the last element of the card. It took me a while to decide on what sentiment to use for this card. I ended up choosing a "Thank You" but I might do another for "Birthday" because I think it would be cute for either. :)

Also used: EK scalloped circle punch and border punch. Fun!

Threefer

Spring is coming! I am pretty sure that this is the first week that we haven't had snow. I have one (ONE!) daffodil blooming in the garden. I'm hoping to have some outside time soon! Oh, it is finally getting warm enough! Hooray!

I've been working on lots of fun things recently but I got behind with my OWH work this week and I had to catch up with this week's challenges and fun things!

So I have a threefer! Lol.. I've combined two challenges before, but never three. 

First, I followed sketch #169 from Stars & Stamps. Well, kind of. I added a few goodies.

I also really wanted to try my hand at this week's flower tutorial. When I was looking for flower ideas, I was really inspired by the cute little forget-me-nots and I wanted to try making some.

Finally, I did today's Midweek Throwdown - It's About Time because this cute stamp set by Hero Arts is one of my favorites. 

So here it is... and some measurements and supplies and such. :) What do you think... over the top?

Closeup of the clock hands and flowers if you want a lookie.

Card base 4 1/4 x 5 1/2" - white cardstock

Blue mat - 4 1/8 x 5 3/8"

(Sorry, I don't remember my colors, or even if they are Bazzil or not - I'm down to using up scraps!)

White mat - 4 x 5 1/4" - embossed with ProvoCraft Swiss Dot embossing folder.

Medium scalloped circle die by Spellbinders

Blue mat - 4 x 1"

White mat - 4 x 7/8"

White mat - 4 x 1" punched with scalloped edge punch by EK

"Miss You All The Time" sentiment and clock by Hero Arts

If you want to do something extra nice, 25% of the profit for this stamp set goes right back to OWH. Yay!

The flowers were cut with Cricut - George and Basic Shapes - 1 1/4 and 1" sizes

The stars were cut from the same - at 1/2"

I used three yellow eyelets.

I heat embossed the sentiment and clock using copper colored embossing powder and I used the last of my cute little "hands" which are actually in a little package by Tim Holtz called "Game Spinners." - but I think that they make cute clock hands. :)

When I was done I decided to add a little bing and added some blue rhinestones using my iRock tool by Imaginisce.

*whew*

That was a lot of stuff - and this card took me about an hour to finish, but I think that it was well worth it.

Oh, and I cleaned the smudge off of my camera lens before taking photos this time... heh.

Thanks for stopping by!

Buzz and Bumble!

Hello!

I thought I would post some cards made with my favorite new products today... it seems like every new campaign, I have a favorite line of CTMH goodies and this Spring/Summer it is the Buzz & Bumble line. I love these!

Here are three cards I made with the Workshop on the Go kit - I bought this specifically because I love the stamp set inside. :) I hope to collect all of the B&B sets - but this one was a must have! I haven't made the workshop pages yet, maybe I will do that later too.

Cards! I followed some of my favorite Deconstructed Sketches. Thanks, Jen, for the awesome sketches! They are also one of my favorite things.

The embossing folder, and fuzzy leaves are not CTMH. The embossing folder is by Friskars and it was another must-have this spring because of the honeycomb pattern. I've got so many bee and honey themed projects already this spring! I think that bees are in this year. :)  I achieved the honeycomb paper look by sanding down the white core paper after embossing.

I did a lot of heat embossing with Cocoa powder for my sentiments. :)

In this card, the honeycomb pattern is on a patterned paper (Not embossed.) I love this paper!!

I love the little embellishments, that look like melted wax seals and little wooden shaped flowers and bees. I'm also in love with the sparkle assortment in this kit. I must have more of these! :)

Thanks for stopping by to see my Buzz and Bumble cards. I'll leave a list of products used and of course I am still enabling others with my CTMH website that you can shop from 24-7 if you love the Close To My Heart products like I do. :)

Thanks for stopping by!!!

***********

The Buzz and Bumble Workshop set (G1054) is $29.95 and includes all of the papers, stamp set, embellishments and sparkles shown above. Separately, you can get:

Brown Sparkle Assortment, Z1753 - $2.95

Buzz & Bumble Assortment, Z1831 - $5.95

Buzz & Bumble Paper Pack, X7164B - $9.95

The colors featured in this line are Champagne, Cocoa, Creme Brulee, Goldrush, Sunset and Sweet Leaf - I used a little of all of these inks and markers for the projects as well as some White Daisy and Cocoa Embossing powders.

Also used in these projects:

Card Chatter - Sympathy (The "Thanks" Stamp), D1476 - &17.95

Clear Buttons, Z1391 - $1.25 (Clearance!)

Color Ready Kraft Borders (Retired)

CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge - to cut the marquee shapes for the sentiments.

Mirror Image Stamping

Thought that you might enjoy today's tutorial at Stars & Stamps for creating mirror image designs when stamping. I used one of my cute Lawn Fawn sets for this technique. Hope you will hop on over to give it a try! :)

DS96

Nooo... not Deep Space 9 . . . although I would expect that from myself at first, too.  (Trek geek!! LOL!!) DS stands for Deconstructed Sketch... one of my favorite new things! I fell behind a little bit with my sketches, but got this one done today using leftover pieces from my March ETM kit. The tags and pieces are long gone but I believe that these papers are by EchoPark? This is what I mean by using up my scraps!!!

So the paper is by EchoPark and Bazzil...the butterfly is a SU punch, and the bling came from the dollar bin at Michaels, the sentiment is from a little acrylic set by TPC studio. :) Oh and I used the ProvoCraft Swiss Dot embossing folder for the background! Yikes ...and the tiny heart punch that came from somewhere a million years ago!!! I guess this card has a lot of stuff on it. Which is something that I really like about the DS sketches, because they challenge me to make more layers and use more embellishments than I have in the past.

Here is the sketch:

And here is my card!

I decied to try black as an accent color, just for fun.

I liked this sketch so much, that I think I would like to try it again. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Oh dear... So while hopping along seeing all of the other cute cards for this sketch, I saw that a few other people used this same cute paper collection and it is by Fancy Pants... Not Echo Park... My bad! Thanks ladies!!!

What March?

Whoa! What happened to March?? I swear that I just blinked and the entire month was over. Things have been super busy and my schedule has really had a whole bunch of changes! Some of you know that I have just finished my third month of treatments for Lupus (SLE) and I'm doing great! I got my definitive diagnosis in January and that was kind of a bummer but really, there are a lot of people who go through much worse things. Having to take a fist full of chemicals every day is no fun but one of my pills is actually anti-malarial so hey... I am totally prepared to travel to Africa now. :) Oh I have always wanted to go!

Along with immune suppressant drugs comes a whole slew of new fun sicknesses...we've gone through the usual routine of stomach / cold / flu this spring already and I am super ready to open all the windows and decontaminate the house! I have to be super careful not to get exposed to too much crud, but a lot of it has still found me. Hopefully soon things will get lots better!

 

I also started a new job with a great schedule and the best group of people I have met in a long time. It's very enjoyable to say the least and I am learning a lot. I've also worked hard on doing other things to help my crummy joints like walking and stretching and yoga. I will not post photos or video of the "yoga" because there is usually a lot of creaking, snaping, grunting and foul language involved. :) I'm going to keep practicing though and maybe some day I will feel confident enough to take a community yoga class. That might be fun!

 

So I didn't get a whole TON of stuff done in March and I missed out on a couple of scrap groups when I was under the weather. Bummer. But....Kim at ETM has been great to me over the last few months and I am still helping to design things from her monthy kits. I have to say that the March kit has turned out to be one of my favorites so I will share a few things that I made with it.

 

 

 The colors and textures in this kit are really fun. I'm not much of a "yellow" person but I really did enjoy working with these colors.

 

The kit comes with a little bird stamp set by BasicGrey - I had fun stamping the "tail" of this peacock by daubing different shades of blue, green and brown onto the stamp with a dauber, then stamping.

 

I used Sandy's Ribbon Trick from this tutorial over at Stars & Stamps. I will surely use this technique to fasten lots of ribbons to my cards in the future! I have lots of cute brads to use up as well! What a great idea.

 

Following a Page Maps sketch... I created a 12 x 12 layout. I was intending to put photos into the two middle blue frames but didn't get around to that part yet. All of the little embellishments and babules that you see on the page come in this kit. So many tags, punches, buttons and fun things! I love the patterned papers in this kit that are by Echo Park and Authentique.

 

This embossed paper (dark grey) is really a fun thing to have in the kit. I believe that there was some in the "February" kit as well but it is such a big hit that we used it again. This is an 8x8 page for those making the 8x8 albums. Love, love, love these colors!

 

Project Life style pages... I must admit that this type of scrapbooking is not really my style but a lot of people are doing it, so hey... this kit is full of little 4x6 mats ready for your Project Life album plus tons of other fun embelishments that you can use.

 

Heyyyy... my little Hero Arts OWH Balloon snuck in on this layout. :) This stamp isn't included in the kit but I couldn't resist using some of the cute chevron paper in the kit to stamp some balloons on to. I used every last scrap of chevron paper to make more balloons for OWH cards and now there are little chevron balloons floating all over my desk top. Help! :)

 

I have challenged myself to use up ALL of each month's kit before the next month's kit comes out. This means making as many good cards as possible out of the scraps. They all go into the Operation Write Home box of course.

 

I'm sorry I have fallen so far behind with other things including all of the fun challenges and posts at OWH. I did a lot of them but just didn't find the time to take photos or blog about them. Things are really falling into place now and I think that I will start anew with April, rather than trying to catch up. I especially want to show some cards that I have been making with a fun new card group... these ladies are having so much fun and making some amazing cards! I'll share our April group for sure.

 

Thanks to my loads of friends and family who have stuck by me these last few months. Adjusting to changes isn't always easy but it's so much better with good friends and loved ones by your side. I'm looking forward to so many very good things this year! See you again soon and thanks for stopping by!